AuthorTopic: Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Read 3871 times)

General-The grand finale to the legend of Geralt of Rivia-A standalone adventure easily accessible to new players-Meaningful choices with consequences that change the story and the game world-Quests and main story threads that can be resolved in any order or completed in parallel-Unforgettable quests deeply linked with the core storyline and designed with care to draw players in-A breathtaking cinematic introduction illustrating the game background-Unique atmosphere, memorable characters and gritty dialogue-36 different final gameworld states and three different playable epilogues

Open world-A vast open world - 35 times larger than that in The Witcher 2 Multiple ecosystems and cultures that players can move between at will. Also confirmed to be 20% bigger than skyrim.-Regions with different inspirations and deep cultural references, each with a distinct feel-Free exploration unspoiled by loading times

Living world-A world shaped by the player's decisions, but which, left to itself, goes on living-A realistic day and night cycle-A dynamic weather system-A living economy:The new in-game economy system varies the price of goods based on surrounding conditions or their place of origin relative to Geralt's current whereabouts in the world: the price of fish might differ depending on distance from water, and a village lying on a trade route for trappers and hunters might have many tanneries and leather workers, affecting the price of crafting components and armor.A unique, deep, consistent and expansive game world based on that described by Andrzej Sapkowski

Combat-A dynamic, tactical combat system rooted in traditional RPG systems-Combat complexity based on a variety of actions at the player’s disposal, not on correct attack sequencing-A Witcher Senses system bringing new tactical depth to combatMonsters, each with their own lore, posing unique hunting challenges and responding to changes in the environment

RPG-A tutorial built into the game, allowing players to dive into the world of the Witcher with ease-Involving investigations and rewarding hunts through the Witcher Senses mechanic-A completely rewritten RPG mechanic allowing players to see the influence of statistics on gameplay-An expanded Sign casting system: each of the 5 Signs has two different modes of use, creating even more possibilities in combat and challenging players to use magic in creative ways-A highly-intuitive Alchemy system-An expanded character development system-Advanced Crafting mechanics

I hold that The Witcher series is one of, if not the best dark fantasy work(s) out there. The only thing that scares me a bit is that CD Projekt RED might try to mainstream this series at the expense of the haunting, fairy-tale charm the Witcher had, although right now, the story structure for the Witcher 3 seems to resemble the books the most. While it can probably be a good political intrigue and saving the northern kingdoms story, The Witcher was never about this; It's about watching conflicts beyond your control from afar while they slowly change your world(or sometimes dont).

On a different note, there probably should be a separate thread for "What upcoming games are you excited for?", and a separate one for discussing what we think the Witcher 3 could end up being/ended up being/was about/etcetera. It just feels neater that way.

@Shadowmage,You could always try to get your hands on one of the novels. They're good(or I'm a fanboy).

I say they're better than a Song of Ice and Fire. Nevermind that I'm stalling the first SoI&F novel, but what little I did read really didn't impress me.

In any case, they are definitely more efficient with their words, which is more that what 90% of fantasy novel authors can claim their books to be. Why fantasy authors feel the compulsive need to drag their books out as long as they possibly can is beyond me; thank God Andrzej Sapkowski is above that.

Well most fantasy authors think by writing in as much detail about the world as possible they think they can immerse the audience into that world. I think Tolkien is probably the first one guilty of this with lord of the rings, and everyone kinda followed suit (though I guess that was mainly the first novel). Many authors are unfortunately guilty of the same, whereas progressive immersion is much better if you ask me (where details of the world are revealed little by little as the plot moves along).

I played a bit of Witcher 1, but the game was slightly too MMORPG for me. Combat was meh as well (felt like it wanted to be an action rpg, but was stuck with a stupid click system). Witcher 2 was much better of course, I do wish it had less QTE's and setpieces though as that's a common trait in gaming these days that I find adds little to the experience.

Well most fantasy authors think by writing in as much detail about the world as possible they think they can immerse the audience into that world. I think Tolkien is probably the first one guilty of this with lord of the rings, and everyone kinda followed suit (though I guess that was mainly the first novel). Many authors are unfortunately guilty of the same, whereas progressive immersion is much better if you ask me (where details of the world are revealed little by little as the plot moves along).

Right? Which is the paradoxical thing, because exempting only the best of books, the more detail you add into a world, the more you run the risk of breaking the enchantment and immersion the novel offers you. Atmosphere is a fragile thing because lots of things, like a four-paragraph long description of a damn bush, can turn a haunting or sorrowful atmosphere into a mundane and boring one. Very few fantasy novels I've read have any actual atmosphere, because they're so busy describing what time the ships arrive and why farmers need to wear special hats.

It's not even that these details have to be detailed explicitly. Integrating them into plot events is one way to balance out the world building, while another is simply to ignore them, but specifically reveal details which automatically make you think those details, though this does throw stories into the problem in which the author starts to mold the plot to accomodate for infodump. An offhand comment telling me that the city watch is corrupt, has their fingers(or daggers) in everyone's pockets, and you're better off steering clear of them is a simple way to make me predict what kind of opinion people have of them, what kind of practices they have, and how tight their security is without having to spend a billion words on it.

Am I ranting? I'm ranting aren't I?

In a lot of ways the Witcher stories are designed to minimise this fluff and infodump. Geralt is an outsider with no patience for bullshit, knows how to get necessary information, and knows how to do his job.

Animation and games are actually a perfect medium for fantasy; far more so than novels are, imo. While anime usually have timing and budget constraints that severely limit plot, and animating battles in anime is terribly difficult, it's less expensive to put crazy stuff into anime than live action, and you can sneak in LOTS of world-detail into the backgrounds with visual media like anime, and thus can save time that novels have to allocate to explaining said detail. Kamisama no Inai Nichyoubi's backgrounds were great, and made me guess an awful lot about the world, and though I have doubts about whether they were intended or not, that they made me guess the entire history of Ortus is a testament to how much easier it is for shows to worldbuild than it is for books, who regularly have to resort to conversations with bartenders. I swear, if I had a dollar for every time a bartender exactly knew what was wrong in town...

This makes me think that maybe I wouldn't have liked the books if it weren't for CD Projeckt RED's strong visual realisation of the Witcherverse. Maybe, maybe not. I doubt it, actually.

Yeah, like in your avatar. Shin Sekai yori does a great job of building world details as the plot gets moved along. Sure there is one episode of info-dumping but other then that it did a great job of making an immersive world while keeping the pace up.

The main rule is of course "show, don't tell" but many writers forget this.

Well Nasu has no choice but to infodump at times because some of his mechanics would be ny impossible to explain otherwise. I think in those situations that is the "only" time when its ok to tell but not show. Still he does go overboard with it a lot and sometimes it makes reading his work pretty exhausting unfortunately. It's probably something he could work on a little bit (he definitely wrote fate much better than Tsukihime at the very least).

But yeah it's still better to explain the details slowly and through the course of the story (same with the characters, rather than having them fiddle around all day). Obviously some lee-way can be given, but I think it's important to "hook" the audience first. I mean if the audience likes the world you created so much (like how people love AOT) then you can just sell guidebooks and encyclopedia's of it afterwards haha. I mean more money for you as a result.